Showcasing the New Equipment is a 17-Night Series of Classics and Digital Restorations

July 12 – August 4, 2012

The American Cinematheque announced today that they have just completed a major upgrade to the projection booth of their Santa Monica location, the 435-seat, single screen Aero Theatre on Montana Avenue. "The American Cinematheque's dedication to exhibiting the best available screening copy on the big screen will clearly be enhanced by our ability to show pristine digital restorations to our audiences," said the American Cinematheque's director, Barbara Smith. "The new digital system joins our pair of classic Norelco AAII film projectors, capable of screening 35mm and 70mm."

The additions to the Aero Theatre booth include an NEC 3240S Digital Cinema Projector, the most powerful and highest resolution Digital Cinema projector being delivered. With a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels and a light output of 33,000 lumens, this projector compliments the only Harkness Hall theatrical micro-perf screen installed in Los Angeles. This means that from any seat in the house theatre goers will see no screen perforations or projector artifacts. A Dolby Digital Cinema Server is installed with an in-projector Integrated Media Block that provides decoding of the high 4K resolution of many studio restorations and upcoming feature releases. This Integrated Media Block also provides the higher frame rate display of the emerging SMPTE standards for 48 and 60 frame per second 2D and 3D motion picture production.

The latest updates for the newest audio formats have also been installed. The Aero can now screen every audio format including 70mm blockbuster roadshow films, 7.1 channel features and all the Digital Cinema distribution masters.

The new additions to the Aero Theatre's booth make it one of the best theaters for both picture and sound in the Los Angeles area. A series of restorations and classics will be shown at the Aero Theatre this summer, to showcase the beauty of a new format and to allow audiences to gain information about the much-discussed transition of motion pictures into the digital age. Below is the schedule for the upcoming DCP series at the Aero Theatre.

The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre thanks NEC Display Solutions, DOLBY and Moving Image Technologies for their assistance with the installation of this equipment.

The American Cinematheque took over the lease of the 1940 Aero Theatre and re-opened it in January 2005 as a Westside, companion theatre to its Hollywood Boulevard location, the 1922 Egyptian Theatre, which has been equipped with NEC digital projection provided by DMX Cinema Technology, Inc. since 2008. The non-profit organization seeks to preserve the cultural tradition of big screen movie viewing in a communal environment.

IN SPECTACULAR DIGITAL CINEMA:CLASSICS AND RESTORATIONS ON THE BIG SCREENSchedule:All Screenings are at the Aero Theatre.

July 12 - August 4, 2012

Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS.

In this time of rapid technological change within the film industry, the American Cinematheque remains committed to the traditional beauty of film prints while also embracing the impressive developments being made in digital projection. We've always been dedicated to showcasing a variety of top-notch formats - from 70mm, to six-track magnetic sound, to nitrate, to dye transfer - and the DCP (digital cinema package) is no different. The DCP format is unique in various ways: Uncompressed sound, zero generational degradations and the ability to scan negatives at high rates (labeled as 2K, 4K and 8K). These elements allow for perfect detail and color while retaining film grain and, in some situations, recreating the look of Technicolor. To unveil the Aero Theatre's new state-of-the-art 4K digital projector, we have programmed a Summer of classic films, screening in gorgeous DCP presentations as you've never seen them before.

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in CASABLANCA.

Included in the series are well known classics from the various studios, such as GONE WITH THE WIND, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, CITIZEN KANE, THE DEER HUNTER, LAURA, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, TAXI DRIVER,THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, CASABLANCA and many more. Check our website for updates about guest speakers and an additional title that will be announced for August 5th.

Friday, July 13 - 7:30 PMDouble Feature:DCP! TAXI DRIVER, 1976, Sony Repertory, 113 min. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro's seminal pistol-packing, insomniac loner) drives through the open sewer that is mid-1970s Manhattan with its pimps (Harvey Keitel), hookers (Jodie Foster), politicos (Cybill Shepherd and Albert Brooks) and other scummy creatures of the neon wilderness. With a ferocious script by Paul Schrader.World Premiere Restoration!DCP! THE COLLECTOR, 1965, Sony Repertory, 119 min. Dir. William Wyler. In one of his earliest and most chilling roles, Terrence Stamp stars as Freddie Clegg, a low-life bank clerk with a penchant for collecting butterflies. Freddie's hobby transforms into obsession and spirals out of control when his collection expands to include females... of the human species! Featuring Samantha Eggar in an outstanding performance. Based on John Fowles' best-selling novel.

Saturday, July 14 - 7:30 PMANN RUTHERFORD TRIBUTE DCP! GONE WITH THE WIND, 1939, Warner Bros., 222 min. Dir. Victor Fleming. Southern vixen Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) only has eyes for sensitive Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) - but wise-cracking hellraiser Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) is determined to win her heart, even if that means surviving the burning of Atlanta, the destruction of Scarlett's beloved Tara and the overthrow of the Old South itself. Ann Rutherford, who played Careen O'Hara, one of Scarlett's sisters, died June 11, 2012 at the age of 94.

Sunday, July 15 - 7:30 PMDCP! THE LEOPARD (IL GATTOPARDO), 1963, 20th Century Fox, 185 min. Italy celebrated 150 years of unification in 2011 and this film depicts a lot of that history. It is Italy's GONE WITH THE WIND. Adapting Giuseppe di Lampedusa's literary masterwork, director Luchino Visconti focuses on philosophical, melancholic Prince Salina (Burt Lancaster), a Sicilian nobleman well aware of the inevitability of the violent Garibaldi-led upheavals then occurring in his country. He is determined to see his family survive, in whatever form, and he watches approvingly as his nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) becomes engaged to the smolderingly beautiful and sweet-natured Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), the daughter of a wealthy, wily merchant. "Miraculous and emotionally devastating." - Roger Ebert. In Italian with English subtitles.

Friday, July 20 - 7:30 PM Humphrey Bogart Double Feature:DCP! CASABLANCA, 1942, Warner Bros., 102 min. Dir. Michael Curtiz. "Here's looking at you, kid." Tough guy Humphrey Bogart is Rick, an expatriate club owner in Morocco, nursing a broken heart after his cherished sweetheart (Ingrid Bergman) disappeared from his side in Paris when the Nazis invaded. When she re-enters his life with her fugitive, resistance-leader husband (Paul Henreid), sparks fly. With an incredible cast that includes Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Conrad Veidt. Winner of three Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.DCP! THE AFRICAN QUEEN, 1951, Paramount, 105 min. Dir. John Huston. Gin-soaked captain Humphrey Bogart decides to take pity on skinny, psalm-singing spinster Katharine Hepburn after her brother is killed in a German attack during WWI - and instead winds up falling in love and ferrying her downriver to launch a suicidal assault on a German warship!

Saturday, July 21 - 7:30 PMDCP! CITIZEN KANE, 1941, Warner Bros., 119 min. Orson Welles was only 25 when he directed this masterpiece, and it remains one of the most phenomenal motion pictures ever made. Welles stars as Charles Foster Kane, a ruthless man who built a newspaper publishing empire and a character supposedly modeled after the real-life mogul William Randolph Hearst. Trailblazing in so many respects, from Gregg Toland's complex camerawork and lighting to Bernard Herrmann's score to one of the finest ensemble casts (including Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane and Agnes Moorehead) ever assembled.

Sunday, July 22 - 4:00 PM 75th Anniversary! DCP! SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, 1937, Disney, 83 min. Dirs. William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen. Walt Disney received eight honorary Oscar statuettes - one regular-sized, and seven petite - for this delightful classic, the first animated feature produced in the United States and the first production by Disney's studio. Having been spared by a huntsman sent to deliver her heart to the vain and wicked Queen, Snow White befriends seven forest dwarves (Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey!), who must come to her rescue when she is put under a sleeping enchantment via poisoned apple. A masterful film with both childlike wonder and genuine frights, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS was named the "Greatest Animated Film of All Time" by the American Film Institute.

Sunday, July 22 - 7:30 PM Double Feature:DCP! LAURA, 1944, 20th Century Fox, 88 min. Dir. Otto Preminger. Investigating a murder, chain-smoking Detective McPherson (Dana Andrews) falls in love with the dead woman - only to find out that it wasn't she who was murdered. Even in a genre known for its convoluted twists, LAURA is a one-of-a-kind film noir. The brilliant cast includes Gene Tierney as the gorgeous Laura, Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker and Vincent Price as Laura's fiancé, Shelby Carpenter. The famous haunting and nostalgic musical theme by David Raksin is unforgettable. The film is said to have been an inspiration for David Lynch's "Twin Peaks."Los Angeles Premiere of New Restoration!DCP! BONJOUR TRISTESSE, 1958, Sony Repertory, 94 min. In Otto Preminger's haunting film (adapted by Arthur Laurents from Francoise Sagan's novel), the underrated Jean Seberg plays a precociously spoiled teen whose wealthy reprobate father (David Niven) decides to settle down by marrying repressed Deborah Kerr, with catastrophic results. Exquisitely filmed (by Georges Perinal) in CinemaScope and shifting between black-and-white and deeply saturated color, Preminger's film sensitively manifests the mysteries of growing up. When Seberg's character finally makes the difficult transition from teenager to adult, it is with a tragic resonance that gives poignant meaning to the film's title (which translates, "Good Day, Sadness").

Wednesday, July 25 - 7:30 PMDCP! DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB, 1964, Sony Repertory, 93 min. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. A gallery of unforgettable comic grotesques, including Sterling Hayden's fluoride-hating general, George C. Scott's oversexed Commie killer and the brilliant, triple-cast Peter Sellers as the befuddled U.S. president, as well as the veddy British commander Mandrake and the maniacal Dr. Strangelove. Slim Pickens (BLAZING SADDLES) plummets his way into comedic history. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room."

Thursday, July 26 - 7:30 PM DCP! THE DEER HUNTER, 1978, Universal, 183 min. From the opening scenes of hunter Robert De Niro and friends Christopher Walken, John Savage and John Cazale stalking deer in the mist-shrouded Pennsylvania hills, to the shattering prisoner-of-war games in the jungles of Vietnam, director Michael Cimino's masterwork is a sprawling, ambitious epic of men wounded by pride, country and friendship, struggling to drag each other back to a place of safety. Co-starring Meryl Streep. Winner of five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Walken).

Friday, July 27 - 7:30 PM Double Feature:DCP! BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, 1961, Paramount, 115 min. Dir. Blake Edwards. When Audrey Hepburn's girl-about-town Holly Golightly meets handsome nice guy George Peppard, she begins to gradually rethink her anything-goes, high-living lifestyle. Adapted from Truman Capote's bestselling romance by director Blake Edwards (THE PINK PANTHER, THE PARTY) and featuring what is arguably Henry Mancini's greatest score.DCP! TWO FOR THE ROAD, 1967, 20th Century Fox, 111 min. Director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Frederic Raphael tell the story of the ups and downs of a marriage via an ingenious, twisty structure more akin to film noir than romantic comedy in this offbeat character study. Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn give two of the best performances of their careers as a husband and wife who can't stand each other - and can't stand to be apart.

CANCELED: Saturday, July 28 - 7:30 PM DCP! RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, 1981, Paramount, 115 min. Archaeologist Harrison Ford battles occult-obsessed Nazis and former girlfriend Karen Allen as he attempts to save the Ark of the Covenant. Brilliant, nonstop adventure from director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas.

Sunday, July 29 - 5:00 PMDCP! THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, 1956, Paramount, 220 min. "Let his name be stricken from every pillar and obelisk!" orders imperious pharaoh Yul Brynner, as favored son-turned-religious rebel Charlton Heston prepares to lead his people out of bondage in Egypt. Cecil B. De Mille's glorious remake of his earlier 1923 TEN COMMANDMENTS emphasized the colossal spectacle of the biblical epic, but never downplayed the tremendous human emotions at the core of the story. (Look for Heston's then-3-month-old son Fraser as the baby Moses in the bulrushes!) With Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget, John Derek, Nina Foch and Vincent Price, and featuring striking VistaVision cinematography by Loyal Griggs (SHANE).

Thursday, August 2 - 7:30 PMDouble Feature:DCP! FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, 1953, Sony Repertory, 118 min. Dir. Fred Zinnemann. This 1953 Oscar winner (for Best Picture, Director, Cinematography and others) remains a timeless combination of war movie and love story that's as smart and adult as it is entertaining. James Jones' novel about military life at a Hawaiian army barracks on the brink of America's entering World War II is the source for a riveting drama starring Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift and many others.DCP! LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING, 1955, 20th Century Fox, 102 min. Hollywood veteran Henry King directs this classic soap opera set in Hong Kong during the Korean War. William Holden is an American war correspondent; Jennifer Jones is the Eurasian doctor he falls for.

Friday, August 3 - 7:30 PMDCP! THE SHINING, 1980, Warner Bros., 142 min. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Jack Nicholson takes a job as winter caretaker at an enormous mountain hotel, where he goes with wife Shelley Duvall and son Danny Lloyd in the hope that snow and solitude will bring him peace of mind. He finds just the opposite, however, as the hotel's horrific past quickly overtakes him.

Saturday, August 4 - 7:30 PMDCP! ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (C'ERA UNA VOLTA IL WEST), 1968, Paramount, 165 min. Charles Bronson is a soft-spoken, harmonica-playing gunslinger bent on revenge against brutal assassin Henry Fonda. Co-starring Claudia Cardinale as an independent-minded mail-order bride and Jason Robards as a wry bandido with an agenda of his own.